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Copyrighted 1916. 
Standard Publishing Co. 



The Child and the 
Church 



HAROLD PAUL SLOAN, 

a Minister of the Methodist Church in New Jersey. 



Published by 
STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

Red Bank, N. J. 



.1* 






INTRODUCTION. *^ ^ 

Right doctrine is essential to right living. Our beliefs 
determine our characters; "as a man thinketh in his heart, 
so is he." 

This fact was emphasized by the Holy Spirit when He 
whispered to ihe Apostle Paul this message for his son-in- 
ihe-Gospel, Timothy: — "Take heed unto thyself and unto 
the doctrine; continue in them; for in so doing thou shalt 
both save thyself, and them that hear thee." 

These words of warning clearly imply that if Timothy 
should neglect the doctrine, his own spiritual life and that 
of his hearers, would be endangered or lost. He fortells 
that "the time will come when they will not endure sound 
doctrine, but, having itching ears, after their own lusts shall 
they heap to themselves teachers; and they shall turn their 
ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." This 
prophecy is fulfilled today by the attempt of the "New 
Theology" to substitute education for salvation, and in the 
denial of the fall of man and of his need of regeneration. 

A careful reading of this volume will convince the read- 
er that the author of this able and timely protest againsc 
the false teachings of today, can say, with the great Apostle 
to the Gentiles, vrhose name he bears, "I am set for the de- 
fense of the Gospel." 

With profound reverence, matured scholarship, deep 
spiritual insight, knowledge of the inspired Word of God, 
unanswerable logic, and with Christian charity, he has de- 
fended some of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian 
Church which have been assailed, not only by foes from 
without but also by those of Christ's own household. 

One of the most valuable chapters in the book is the 
one in which the author proves his conclusion by facts from 
his personal religious experience. It is the picture of an 
honest soul in the supreme quest of life. The story is 
thrilling and describes in detail the struggle of 3"ears through 
which he passed, and through which many other thoughtful 
young people are passing today. May they, like the author, 
reach the goal and come into the same blessed experience 
of pardoned sins and fellowship with the living Christ. 

This book has a message ai;d a mission. No minister 
of the Gospel or Church official can aSord to neglect it. It 
should be read and re-read until it grips the mind and the 
heart of the reader, and he is under constraint to "contend 
earnestly for the faith that was once for all delivered unto 
the saints." 

AARON E. BALLARD, 

Ocean Grove. 



FEB -8(916 






CONTENTS. 



I. The Child and the Church. 

II. ^^Educational'' or ^^ Preventive Salva- 
tion", just what the new teaching is. 

III. Bearing of the Scriptures toward the 

new teaching, in its denial of univer- 
sal natural depravity. 

IV. Bearing of Historic Christianity toward 

the new teaching in its denial of uni- 
versal natural depravity. 

V. Other failures of the new teaching from 
the point of view of Historic Chris- 
tianity. 

VI. The rise of the new teaching and a Chris- 
tian construction of the facts upon 
which it is based. 

VII. A Christian conception of the child, and 
of his relation to the Church. 

VIII. A personal experience illustrating the 
new teaching, and its points of fail- 
ure, and showing anew the deep and 
abiding truth of the Historic Faith. 

IX. A final word. 



y 



Dedicated, in humble trusting devotion, to the 
Faith once for all delivered unto the saints, the 
Faith that was, and is and shall be the "same; 
world without end, Amen. 



I. 

THE CHILD AND THE CHUECH. 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 7 

I. 

Historic Christianity puts a certain estimate up- 
on all human nature; it teaches us to regard it in 
a particular way. What this estimate is, is stated 
in Christian Theology. 

Again and again in these modern times we are 
called upon to put aside our theologies, and turn 
our attention to the child himself: and we do not 
object to the proposition; for the faith that is in 
the Church of Christ will certainly bear the test of 
facts. Some who have answered this call to study 
the child have considerably modified the Histaric 
Faith; they have come to the conclusion that the 
Church has misunderstood the child ; and so they 
have formulated both a new estimate of him, and a 
new plan of salvation, by which he is to come into 
his moral destiny. This new plan or program is 
variously named, '^Cultural Salvation'^, ** Educa- 
tional Salvation'', ** Preventive Salvation''. Our 
own discussion of this engaging subject, the rela- 
tion bet^^^een the child and the Church, will natur- 
ally be much concerned with the new teaching and 
program. 



n. 

EDUCATIONAL OR PREVENTIVE SALVA- 
TION, JUST WHAT THE NEW TEACPI- 

ING IS. 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 11 

n. 

^^Educational'' or ^'Preventive Salvation,'' — 
the term might be as old as Pelagius; for it puts 
the same estimate upon natural humanity that he 
did, but it is one of exceedingly recent origin. Be- 
cause of its lack of Christian antiquity, it has no 
generally accepted meaning; and so we will have 
to work this out for ourselves, from those who 
have admitted their s^mapathy with this new prop- 
aganda in the Church. According to one promin- 
ent exponent of the theory, preventive salvation is 
the process by which a child can be trained up to 
Christian maturity, without there being any be- 
ginning or break in its relation to God. There are 
several things this exponent of the view does not 
mean to say, thus: 

1. He does not mean by relation to Grod, con- 
scious relation to Him; for he denies that con- 
sciousness of one's relation to God is an essential 
mark of the Christian. 

2. Neither does he mean that the child's heart 
is right at the start, and is always right through- 
out his life ; for he also denies that the rightness of 
the heart, of the emotions, is an essential mark of 
the Christian. 

3. Neither does he mean that the child will 
grow up without sinning ; for, as he puts it, ' ' chil- 
dren sin and so do Christians." 

He makes the single essential mark of the Chris- 
tian to be a purpose of obedience toward duty as it 
is revealed in the Scriptures : the choosing of right 
is the one necessity, the renewing of the heart is 
not a necessity, and neither is the experiencing of 
a conscious relation to God. 

As I understand his position, by ' ' a child grow- 
ing up without there being any break in its rela- 
tion to God," he means that a child can grow up 
without there being any time when its will is in 
open enmity against the whole law of God, a time 
when it is in rebellion against His authority and 
means to be. There will be mutterings of rebel- 



12 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

lion, in the refusal of particular commands, there 
will be deliberate sins; but the child will always 
recognize the right of God to rule in its life, and 
will be in a general way obedient to His authority. 
That this is not an equivalent of the New Testa- 
ment conception of Christian character hardly 
needs to be stated, but some views of this new 
teaching are very much fuller. 

Thus, the position taken by the Sunday School 
literature of some of the great Protestant denom- 
inations goes a great deal farther. It believes in 
the possibility of developing right emotions as 
j well as right volitions, and the education of the 
i^motions is a prominent feature in its program of 
work. As to a full supernatural Christian con- 
sciousness, this literature is not definite. It main- 
tains that a loving trust in the kind Heavenly 
Father can be implanted in childhood, in the years 
when the child is naturally believing and trustful ; 
it also emphasizes the prayer relation, and seeks to 
build into the child's heart a habit of pray erf ul- 
ness; but in each case it would seem, that the inter- 
est is in prayer as a habit of the child, rather than 
as an effort through which God comes to act upon 
him. Its general position is that the child comes 
into the world with certain natural instincts and 
tendencies, and that others appear during the 
course of growth, and that if these are properly 
directed and right habits and principles of action 
are inculcated, the child's life will unfold natural- 
ly without a break, into a Christian maturity of 
love and service toward God and men. 

There is in its teaching no emphasis upon sin. 
The unpleasant traits of children are looked upon 
as the expression of their natural instincts, which 
need only to be limited and regulated by educa- 
tion. That these unpleasant traits are expressions 
of a natural moral depravity, is denied, as is also 
any moral demerit in the actions themselves. 

The possibility of regulating the child's in- 
stincts, by precept, example and inspiration, so 
as to achieve a well organized character, is confi- 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 13 

clently asserted. Thus, pride, self will, and love 
are instincts of the child, some appearing at birth, 
some later; the proper regulation and correlation 
of these by various educational methods, is, in a 
word, the program of preventive salvation. A 
statement of this program in seven sentences will 
make the position clear. 

1. Its basic truth is the denial of the native 
sinfulness of human nature. Morally, human na- 
ture starts neutral; it ma}^ develop either into 
righteousness or sin according to the training it 
receives. 

2. Supplementary to this denial of native sin- 
fulness, is its assertion of the native spirituality of 
human nature. Spiritual maturity is separated 
from natural birth only by a process of natural 
growth and a programme of education. 

3. The first item in its educative program is the 
implantation of faith. This is done in the very 
early years when the child is still trustful and be- 
lieving; it is taught then to confide in the kind 
Heavenly Father, whose loving care is over all his 
Avorks. At this time also, and from this time on, 
the child is encouraged in prayer and worship. It 
is by such discipline in self expression that its 
natural spirituality is to be developed. 

4. Through the entire period of growth the 
children are taught and trained in the details of 
right conduct, by this effort it is hoped to establish 
firmly in their lives right habits and principles of 
action. 

5. During early adolescence their hearts are to 
be inspired by accounts of heroic service, and at 
this time Jesus is pictured to them as the noblest 
of heroes. This emphasis is expected to develop 
the child's natural altruism, and inspire him to 
acts of personal ministry and sacrifice. 

6. During the same period of adolescence the 
details of right conduct, as set forth in the words 
and by the example of Jesus, are taught, and their 
application to modern life problems is encouraged. 

7. Finally, at the age of decision, each child is 



14 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

to be pressed to an act of self dedication to love 
and serve God and men. A quotation from a Sun- 
day School periodical gives the spirit of this cli- 
max. ^^The genius of youth is altruism, a noble 
self-forgetfulness in ser^T.ce, and it is here that one 
soul kindles another, one heart another ; so that the 
spirit and example of the teachers and officers 
(touched by the sacred fire from off the altar) 
needs must fall on the school in Pentecostal ful- 
ness." This baptism of the spirit and example of 
teachers and officers is offered as the equivalent of 
Christian Evangelism, yet the Holy Ghost is only 
indirectly involved, by His having inspired the 
hearts of the teachers and officers. From this 
point on the children are expected to live lives of 
noble ser^dce for men, their conduct constantly de- 
termined by firmly fixed habits and principles of 
action. 



III. 

BEARING OF THE SCRIPTURES TOWARD 

THE NEW TEACHING IN ITS DENIAL OF 

UNIVERSAL NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 



TIIE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 17 

III. 

The inadequacy of this program as an expres- 
sion of the Gospel of redemption and regeneration 
will be at once evident to many, the points at 
which it must be criticized are numerous; but that 
which is most fundamentally and most apparently 
mistaken is its denial of natural depravity. Chil- 
dren, it teaches, are born morally neutral, if they 
fall into sin they lieed redemption and regenera- 
tion, otherwise they do not. 

The adherents of this new program are not 
very careful to relate their positions to the teach- 
ings of the word of God; but there are two pas- 
sages from the synoptic Gospels, that are often 
quoted by them to support their denial of natural 
depravity. Of these passages the fullest texts are 
to be found in St. Mark 10:13 and in St. Matthew 
18:3. 

Turning now to St. Mark 10:13 we find the fol- 
lowing: 

**And they brought little children to Him, that 
He should touch them; and His disciples rebuked 
those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, 
He was much displeased, and said unto them, Suf- 
fer the little children to come unto me, and forbid 
them not; for of such is the kingdom of God. 
Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not re- 
ceive the Kingdom of God as a little child he sball 
not enter therein. And He took them up in His 
arms, put His hands upon them, and blessed 
them.'' 

The first important matter to be determined is 
the force of the Greek word, * * toiouton. ' ' Thay- 
er's lexicon gives as its English equivalent the 
word, **such," and the phrase, *'of this sort or 
kind," that is those having these general traits. 
We would render, then, the Master's words thus, 
^*0f tho*='e having these general traits is the King- 
dom of Heaven." 

Two meanings are possible: , 



18 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

1. That Jesus sees in the child character a 
specimen of sainthood. 

2. That Jesus sees in the child character some 
outstanding traits that are illustrative of saint- 
hood. 

The choice between these two meanings cannot 
be determined from the text itself, but must be de- 
termined by the context, and the general teaching 
of the Scriptures. Turning now to St. Matthew 
18:3 we find that the Saviour, having made a very 
similar statement, ^'Except ye be converted and 
become as little children ye shall not enter into 
the kingdom of heaven, * ' goes on to detail His ex- 
act meaning. *'Whosever, therefore, shall hum- 
ble himself as a little child the same is the great- 
est in the Kingdom of Heaven.^' The context in 
this instance makes it clear that what Jesus sees 
in the child character is its humility. Take the 
entire incident. The disciples had been discussing 
which one of them should be the greatest in the 
Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus replies by taking a 
little cliild and setting him in their midst, and then 
saying to them: only by becoming humble like the 
children, who play together without any disputes 
as to preeminence, shall you at all enter into the 
Kingdom; and the one who most perfectly embod- 
ies such humility will be the greatest in it. 

Humility, then, as a trait of child life that is il- 
lustrative of sainthood, is clearly our Lord\s 
meaning in St. Matthew, and He does not mean at 
all to say that children are naturally saints. 

Eeturning now to the incident in St. Mark, we 
remember that here the context is the desire of cer- 
tain mothers that Jesus should bless their chil- 
dren, and the proud aversion of the disciples to the 
idea. They felt that such an interest in children 
was beneath the dignity and importance of the 
Messianic King, and especially so then, when he 
was on his way to coronation. Jesus is displeased 
with this arro«:ant self importance of maturity 
towlard little children; and so He reproves His dis- 
ciples by renewing His former emphasis upon the 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH, 19 

worth of childhood's outstanding trait, humility. 

Thus He says to them, * * Suffer the little chil- 
dren to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of 
those having this general character is the kingdom 
of heaven. ' ' And then interpi^etatively He adds, 
^^ Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of 
Heaven as a little child shall not enter therein.'' 
His meaning seems perfectly clear, He says let the 
children come; for unless the disciples shall get 
free from their arrogance and self importance, and 
shall receive the Kingdom with that same simple 
humility that a child manifests in its common ex- 
periences, they shall not enter into it. 

We cannot avoid a sense of amazement at the 
devotion of our friends to these two texts; one of 
which cannot by any means be made to support 
their belief, and the other only made to support it 
by first ignoring the context, and then carelessly 
rendering the text itself. Certainly Jesus did not 
mean to say that children are saints: but simply 
that humility, simplicity, and trustfulness, traits 
which little children conspicuously manifest in 
certain relations, are illustrations of the traits of 
character conditional to gaining a place in His 
Kingdom. One word further with respect to these 
two passages in the Gospels. It needs to be re- 
membered, in any moral evaluation of these traits 
of young children, that they are purely imperson- 
al, they are therefore morally of no more signifi- 
cance than a good memory; for nothing has any 
final moral worth unless it is a personally deter- 
mined bearing. 

But, if there is a poverty of Scriptural material 
at hand to support this new teaching, — that a child 
is by nature good, — there is no such embarrass- 
ment for those who maintain the opposite position. 
Beginning in the Old Testament with the book of 
Genesis, the whole weight of the Biblical test- 
mony establishes the fact that all men are born 
with natures strongly set toward sin. 

In Genesis 3 :17-24 we read that man is banished 



20 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

from the Garden of Eden, and put for all time un- 
der God's curse because of sin. 

In Genesis 6:5-6 Jehovah estimates the human 
heart as continually evil, repents that He has made 
man, and purposes the flood. 

In Genesis 8:21 Jehovah at the end of the flood 
estimates men similarly, ' ' the imagination of 
man 's heart is evil from his youth. ' ' 

In the later Penteteuchal books the whole sys- 
tem of laws and sacrifices contemplates the deep 
sinfulness of human nature. The historical books, 
while they do not teach anything theological, con- 
stantly present a picture of sin and failure that is 
so deep and universal that it requires heart sinful- 
ness as its explanation. 

Job in several passages expresses definitely this 
estimate of human nature thus: — chapter 14:4. 
^^Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? 
not one. ' ' Or again Job 15 :14 ^ * What is man that 
he should be clean! And he that is born of woman 
that he should be righteous f And yet again in 
Job 15:16: ^^Man that is abominable and corrupt; 
man, that drinketh iniquity like water." These 
would be wildly extravagant expressions if noth- 
ing were intended beyong a confession that most 
men sin occasionally, and some men rather con- 
stantly. 

The Psalter expresses the same idea in several 
iplaces, thus, Psalm 14:2. ^^ Jehovah looked down 
from heaven upon the children of men to see if 
there were any that did understand, that did seek 
after God. ' ' ' ' They are all gone aside * * * there 
is none that doeth good, no, not one.'' This pas- 
sage appears a second time in Psalm 53. In Psalm 
51:5 the Psalmist confesses, ** Behold I was 
brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my moth- 
er conceive me. ' ' 

In the book of Ecclesiastes there is the same 
idea, chapter 9:3 **The heart of the sons of men is 
full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while 
they live. ' ' 

Isaiah, in his sixth chapter, voices his sense of 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 21 

universal sin and shame when he beholds the vis- 
ion of Jehovah's glory sajdng, *^Woe is me for I 
am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips 
and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, 
for mine eyes have seen the i^ng, the Lord of 
Hosts. ' ' And both in his 53d and 64th chapters he 
expresses a consciousness of deep universal and 
humanly hopeless sin. 

Jeremiah in his 16th chapter and 12th verse pic- 
tures sin as a universal fact in the Israel of his 
day. And in the 17th chapter, verse 9, he speaks 
of sinfulness as if it were a characteristic trait of 
the human heart, thus, *^The heart is deceitful 
above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt. 
Who can know it! '* 

Dr. W. B. Pope thus sums up the position of the 
Old Testament upon this subject, *^It has been seen 
that the Old Testament maintains one consistent 
and unifoim teaching concerning the nature of sin 
generally, and as to its universal power over man- 
kind. The history of the flood gives its witness 
both in clear testimony and awful judgment. The 
covenant rite of circumcision significantly declares 
the hereditary sinfulness of man. The entire sys- 
tem of the Levitical economy was based on this as- 
sumption; for while its trespass offerings had 
more specific reference to individual offenses, its 
sin offerings had general reference to the deeper 
roots of universal sin. The Psalms and Prophets 
abound in testimony to the same effect, not only 
assuming the universality of past and present 
sin among men, but asserting it with equal confi- 
dence concemin«: the unlimited future, One Being 
only excepted, The Righteous Servant of Jeho- 
vah. ' ' 

Coming to the New Testament we find this esti- 
mate of natural humanity to be its persistent 
teaching; and so abundantly and clearly is it ex- 
pressed that only the strongest personal bias can 
possibly blind one 's eyes to its truth. 

In Matthew 7 :11 Jesus says, * ^ If ye then, being 
«vil, know how to give good gifts unto your chil- 



22 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

dren, etc. ' ^ Manifestly our Lord here specifically 
puts an estimate upon human nature, that it is uni- 
versally evil. 

As to His institution of Baptism and of the Sup- 
per, natural depravity must have underlaid them 
in His mind. Thus in the great commission Jesus 
empowers His apostles to disciple all men by the 
baptism of repentance ; and in the supper they are 
all to eat and drink a memorial of His vicarious 
sacrifice for sin. Such words and such provisions 
would be quite inexplainable, if sin were not re- 
garded both as universal and deeply seated. A 
gospel, in which through sacraments, a supreme 
emphasis is put upon the atonement for sin, and 
the washing of regeneration, must have as its pre- 
supposition the doctrine of the fall and consequent 
depravity of the race. But we are not left to ar- 
gument and exigesis ; for the Saviour in St. John ^s 
account of His teaching, has clearly formulated 
this doctrine. 

Thus, St. John 3:5, '^Except a man be born of 
water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the 
Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh 
is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is 
spirit. Marvel not, etc. ^' 

Or again in St. John 8:23, '*Ye are from be- 
neath, I am from above, ye are of this world, I am 
not of this world. ' ' 

These passages need no interpretation, they 
speak clearly and sufficiently for themselves; but 
coming to some in which the presupposition of 
natural depravity, while clear, is not so definitely 
stated, we notice, in John 15:1: The Saviour 
under the analogy of the vine and its branches 
sets forth the doctrine that men can only bring 
forth the fruits of righteousness, by the mystic in- 
flowing of His nature into theirs. Thus, **I am 
the vine, ye are the branches, * * * abide in me and 
I in you for without me ye can do nothing.'^ 

To every careful student of St. John's gospel it 
will be immediately clear that this inflowing of the 
Sa^dour's nature through our indwelling in Him, 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 2a 

is equivalent to our eating His flesh and drinking 
His blood, or to our drinking of the water that He 
shall give; to our believing upon Him, or to our be- 
ing bom with that birth from above, which alone 
can make us more than mere flesh, — a state in 
which we are at once blind to the kingdom and 
cannot possibly enter therein. So by whatever 
Word we may choose to denominate man's natural 
state, his state apart from this gracious and mys- 
tical work of the Saviour, we are bound to admit 
two things concerning it: — First, that it is a state 
in which he is largely separated from God and 
blind to the Spirit's leadings. Second, that it is 
a state from which he can only be rescued by those 
amazing events, the Incarnation, Death, and Res- 
urrection of the Lord Jesus. 

Thus the angels say of Jesus, speaking of His 
mission on earth, that He came to save His people 
from their sins. And He himself says, with fine 
irony, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners 
to repentance. The Gospels on every page glow 
with grace and hope for sinners, they offer no hope 
for those who trust in themselves that they are 
righteous. 

Baptism is the sacrament of repentance and in- 
itiation ; the Supper is the sacrament of atonement 
for sin and mystical union with the Saviour; these 
have been the central items in Christian worship 
from the very beginning, and have always been 
administered to all believers. Why this univer- 
sality and emphasis, if sin is only an incidental 
fact ? Emphatically, we assert the Bible never es- 
timates it thus. Peter feels that sin is so essen- 
tially human, rather than incidental, that he 
charges a promiscuous crowd of ** devout men" 
from every part of the known world with the guilt 
of Christ's death: ^^Him, ye by the hands of law- 
less men did crucify and slay," He says in Acts 
2 :23, and the Holy Ghost used his message ; for we 
read that these men are pricked in their hearts by 
it. What Peter meant and what the Holy Ghost 
confirmed was not the criminality of those devout 



24 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

men in the death of Jesus, but the fact that univer- 
sal human sin, through the crimes of the men of 
Jerusalem, wrought that death. Those men on the 
day of Pentecost experienced the same shame and 
guilt as that to which Isaiah testified, *'Woe is me 
for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean 
lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean 
lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of 
Hosts. ' ^ For Isaiah to be what he was and see the 
King, made liim afraid; and for those Jews, whom 
Peter addressed, to be what they were, when the 
King came in the flesh, made them partakers in 
His murder. Certainly it is universal sinfulness, 
and not merely personal acts of transgression that 
lies behind these expressions. Concluding then 
our survey of the direct teaching of Jesus, we 
make this statement: it is no more possible to in- 
terpret the Gospels apart from the admission of 
man's natural and deep sinfulness, than it is pos- 
sible to chart our earth on the hvpothesis that it is 
flat. 

Coming now to the Epistles of St. Paul, we can 
only take time to cover his statements in the brief- 
est possible way. Romans 3:20-23, ^'Therefore by 
the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified 
in His sight ; for by the law is the knowledge of sin. 
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of 
God." This is the apostle's conclusion at the end 
of his three chapter argument setting forth the 
depth and universality of sin, it certainly lacks 
nothing in definiteness. 

Romans 5:12 is his parallel between Adam 
and Christ in which he asserts repeatedly, that by 
the one historic sin the whole race became sinners. 
"We will pause here long enough to answer one pos- 
sible objection. It is sometimes claimed tbat if 
this chapter teaches universal sinfulness through 
Adam, it also teaches universal salvation through 
Christ, and the latter more abundantly. We an^ 
swer in three statements: 

1. Universal salvation, in the sense of the final 
blessedness of all humanity, is repeatedly denied 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 25 

in St. Paul *s writings and in this very letter to the 
Romans. 

2. Universal salvation, in the sense that our 
Methodism uses the expression, is taught here. 
CJhrist^s atonement is actually universal, and His 
grace of regeneration is universally accessible 
through personal faith. 

3, In any event, that which Adam lost by sin, 
was not the certainty of salvation, but the possi- 
bility of it ; and this possibility is superabundantly 
restored in Christ. 

In Romans 6 :6 the apostle writes, * * The old man 
is crucified, that the body of sin might be done 
awav. ' ^ 

In Romans 7:5 he refers to a time when he him- 
self and the Roman Christians were in a different 
condition from their present state of grace, in the 
words, **When we were in the flesh.'* 

In Romans 7:14-18 he presents the fact of hu- 
manity's utter inability to keep the law of God, 
concluding with these words, *'Now it is no more 
I that do it", but sin that dwelleth in me ; for in me, 
that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." In 
this same connection he points out the fact that 
his inability was not intellectual; for he admired 
the moral ideal, rather it was human, he had no 
power to achieve it. 

In Romans 7:23 to 8:2 he contrasts his power- 
lessness and hopelessness under the order of heart 
sinfulness, law and death, with the hope and 
strength that is his under the order of the Spirit 
of life in Christ Jesus. 

In Romans 8 :5-10 he points out the contrast be- 
tween **in the flesh'' and *4n the Spirit," and then 
marks the inability of the former to please God. 
It is the supernatural incoming of the Spirit of 
Christ that puts an end to this condition of moral 
impotency. 

The biographical nature of these chapters in Ro- 
mans gives them greater force, and especially so, 
when we realize how fully Paul, durinsr the days 
of his flesh, had already pledged himself to love 



26 THE CHILD AXD THE CHTECH. 

and serve God and men. Yet in spite of what we 
know to have been his strength of nature, he gives^ 
it as his experience, that it was impossible for him 
in the days of the flesh to please God; for '*the 
mind of the flesh is enmity against God, for it is 
not subject to the law of God. neither indeed can 
it be." " 

Beside this very thorough and reiterated state- 
ment of universal natural depra\^ty in Romans, St. 
Paul makes numerous references to this truth in 
Ms other letters thus: 

1 Corinthians 2:14. *'Xow the natural man re- 
ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they 
are foolishness unto Him: and He cannot know 
them; for they are spiritually discerned. ■■ 

Galatians 3:10 teaches such a sinfulness of na- 
ture as leaves man powerless and hopeless under 
the law. It also suggests that this universality 
of sin, by excluding pride in the repentant, is fun- 
damental to the experience of salvation. 

Ephesians 4:22-24 refers to the familiar dis- 
tinction between man's two states, the flesh and 
the spirit. 

Finally in St. John's great Catholic Epistle, in 
the first chapter, verses eight and ten. the apostle 
distinguishes clearly between sinfulness of nature 
and acts of transgression, asserting that both are 
universallv true. Thus in verse eight he u-es the 
words, "We do not possess sin.-' that is sinful na- 
tures; and in verse ten he uses the words, ""We 
have not sinned," that is committed an act of 
transgi'ession. Of the first class, he says, ^*They 
deceive themselves and the tiTith is not in them,'' 
and of the second class he says. ' * They make God a 
liar and His word is not in them. 

There are various opinions amons: Christians as 
to which is the pre-eminent book of the New Cov- 
enant Scriptures. Some have chosen the Gospel 
according to St. John, others his erreat epistle, and 
othei^s still St. Paul's wonderful doctrinal letter to- 
the Church at Pome. But whichever among these 
three is chiefest. certainlv thev make ur"> the sreat- 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 2r 

est group of New Testament writings: St. Jolin*s 
Gospel laying bare the inner consciousness of the 
Saviour, his epistle laying bare the inner con- 
sciousness of the saved, and St. Paul 's letter to the 
Church at Rome giving to us a philosophy of 
Christianity as a world faith. 

All the New Testament writings teach natural 
depravity; belief in this condition is the reason for 
their whole witness; but in these three, the greatest 
books, the doctrine finds formal and reiterated ex- 
pressions. ^^That which is born of the flesh is 
flesh, ^' says Jesus. ^^ Whoever says I do not pos- 
sess a sinful nature, deceives himself and the truth 
is not in him,'^ says St. John. ^*For the mind of 
the flesh is enmity against God, for it is not sub- 
ject to the law of God, and indeed cannot be; there- 
fore they that are in the flesh cannot please God, ' ' 
says St. Paul. And now once again we state out 
conclusions as before: it is as impossible to inter- 
pret the New Testament apart from belief in uni- 
versal natural depravity, as it would be to chart 
the world apart from belief in its spherical form. 



THE BEAEING OF HISTORIC CHRISTIANITYi 
TOWAED THE NEW TEACHING IN ITS 

DENIAL OF UNIVERSAL NATL^RAL 
DEPRAVITY. 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 31 

IV. 

Having completed this hasty survey of the 
teaching of God^s Word upon this fundamental 
Christian doctrine, we turn to the teachings of the 
Church. Beginning with Origen, about the earl- 
iest of the great post-apostolic fathers, and coming 
down to the present time, we find that the teaching 
of the Church through the ages has been faithful 
to the Scriptural position. 

Origen, accepting the doctrine of natural de- 
pravity, explained it by the hypothesis of a per- 
sonal sin and fall in a premundane life. 

Tertullian taught that sin was inherited; he 
originated the words, '^Blemish of origin,'* or 
^^ birth.'' 

Ambrose taught that all sinned in Adam, and 
Augustine, generally recognized as the father of 
systematic theology, taught this in the most liter- 
al way, making it the basis of his defense of divine 
justice, in view of his other teaching, of an un- 
conditional election to salvation or misery. 

At the time of the Reformation the Roman 
Catholic doctrine as formulated by the Council of 
Trent, was as follows: — 

1. Adam was created a perfect and free man. 

2. He was endowed with holiness by the in- 
dwelling of the Holy Ghost. 

3. Adam, as the head of the race, included in 
himself all souls, so that all sinned in him. 

4. His sin lost for himself and all, the indwell- 
ing of the Holy Ghost, and as a result, holiness of 
life. Beside this it made both Adam and all men 
guilty before God and in peril of eternal wrath. 

5. Tlie atonement in Christ, made individually 
efficient in baptism, washes away the guilt of 
original sin, leaving only the sinful bias of nature; 
which is not sin unless it expresses itself in a spe- 
cific transgression of the divine law. 

6. Man, as fallen, has still freedom of will suf- 
ficient to turn to God and lay hold on divine grace 
to salvation. 



32 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

The Reformed doctrine differs from the Roman 
in three items. It holds that by the fall man lost 
all freedom, that depravity is a matter of guilt be- 
fore God, that salvation is entirely by God^s sov- 
ereign grace. 

In addition to the Roman and Reformed theo- 
logies, the Reformation gave birth to another sys- 
tem of Christian thought known as Arminianism. 
Arminianism, called from the name of its found- 
er, James Arminius, differs from the original Re- 
formed theology chiefly in its rejection of the doc- 
trine of predestination. It was first promulgated 
by Arminius about 1603, and was afterwards fur- 
ther developed and asserted by Simon Episcopius 
and John IJytenbogaert. 

Arminianism, as a statement of the Christian 
faith, was popularized largely by John Wesley and 
those who labored with him in the Methodist 
movement; and inasmuch as this study is made 
from the point of view of a Methodist, it will be 
interesting to know not only what was the original 
Arminian position, but also what changes, if any, 
have been made in its teaching. 

As a matter of fact the teaching of Arminianism 
on this subject is identical, no matter who may be 
the theologian, or in what century he may have 
written; and one single statement will be sufficient 
to express it, no matter whether one is th'nking of 
Arminus, the founder, or of Wesley, of Watson, or 
of Pope, the great Methodist divines who made it 
a popular theology. 

The Arminian position can be simply stated in 
5 propositions: 

1. Adam was originally perfect and morally 
holy, in the sense that as inspired by the Divine 
Spirit, he was able to fulfill God 's law. 

2. By sin he lost this holiness and became total- 
ly depraved, in the sense that his mind dark- 
ened, his desires depraved, and his will become re- 
fractory, he was utterly unable of himself to turn 
to God or do anything good. 

3. This depravity, descended by natural gener- 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 3a 

ation from Adam to all Ms posterity; so that they 
too are by nature sinful, guilty, and entirely un-^ 
able of their own powers to begin or perfect any 
good. 

4. God has not, however, left men in this state* 
into which the penalty of original sin cast them,. 
but universally and always He has blessed them 
with the gift of prevenient grace. Thus He ever 
leads them to do good, and even while yet in this 
state of nature, causes them to be conscious of sin. 
He constantly inclines their hearts to repentance 
and faith. 

5. Eegeneration restores man to the original 
holiness lost by the fall, renewing his affections, 
enlightening his mind, and inclining his will to 
God. 

The Arminian doctrine differs from the Reform- 
ed and the Roman, in that it does not impute to 
fallen men the guilt of original sin. It differs from 
the Reformed alone, in making prevenient grace a 
universal gift rather than a gift to the elect ex- 
clusively. And it differs from the Roman alone^ 
in that it explains man's natural freedom and 
power to do good by prevenient grace, rather than 
by his own natural ability. There are one or two 
other minor differences between the Arminian and 
Roman doctrines, but we will not notice them. 

Coming now to our own times, it is little more 
than twenty years ago that Dr. John Miley, late of 
Drew Theological Seminary, wrote his great book 
entitled, ''Systematic Theology,'' and that this 
work was substituted for Dr. Pope's as an expres- 
ssion of the theology of Methodism. In these vol- 
umes Dr. Miley gives expression to a faith that is 
in all essentials identical with that maintained in 
common by the earlier Arminian divines. His dif- 
ferences are very minor, we notice two : 

1. He locates the deterioration of human na- 
ture, through the loss of the Holy Ghost in man's 
conscience life and sensibilities alone, teaching 
that the will is only affected because man has lost 
the motivity of holiness. 



M THE CHILD AND THE CHU1RCH. 

2. He explains natural virtues, not by preven- 
lent grace, but by the admission, that in spite of 
the fall human nature has some remnant of goo4 
in it. 

In these two changes of the Arminian doctrine, 
Dr. Miley has moved from the Reformed toward 
the Roman position. 

It is not eight years since Dr. Miley 's work gave 
place to one by Dr. Henry Sheldon of Boston Uni- 
versity School of Theology. The caption of the 
book is, *^ System of Christian Doctrine.'' The 
author is entirely faithful to the traditional Chris- 
tian position. On page 312, discussing natural de- 
pravity, he writes, *'The first trespass stands out 
as initiating that moral depravation, which is a 
general characteristic of the race.'' This he con- 
cludes to be the sum of the Scripture teaching on 
the subject. Later, when dealing with the fact of 
universal death, he writes, *^ Apart from the end 
of mere punishment, a race which had become 
heir to evil tendencies, and needed to be held back 
from excess of wickedness might be conceivably 
subjected to the restricting and discipling influ- 
ence of mortality." (Page 315.) Here again the 
fact of racial depravity is frankly recognized. 

Comparing Dr. Sheldon with Dr. Miley we find 
the only difference to be, that the former's state- 
ment is less thorough than the latter 's. About the 
most recent comprehensive statement of Arminian 
Theology is by Dr. Olin Alfred Curtis in his book, 
^^The Christian Faith." 

This book differs markedly both in its theologi- 
•cal vocabulary and in its point of view from the 
earlier statements of Arminianism; but its actual 
ieaching, when thoroughly grasped, will be seen 
to be identical. The following brief citation will, 
I think, present Professor Curtis' view. (Pages 
'200-203.) ''Every individual member of the race 
is born depraved, in the sense that he has 
lost the personal vision and intimacy of God. Of 
what was originally a rich, full moral life, only 
i^conscience, a mere fragment, is left; and this is 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH, 35 

totally inadequate as a means of achieving moral 
organization. In the sense that man is totally un- 
able by the simple power of his conscience to 
achieve a moral, personal organization, he may be 
truly said to be totally depraved." 

Comparing Dr. Curtis with other Methodist au- 
thorities we find that he differs from Arminius, 
Wesley, Watson, and Pope, just as Miley did; and 
that he differs from Miley just as Sheldon does, 
namely he omits certain details, and satisfies him-- 
self with asserting a few bulk ideas. 

Coming now to that which we have left until the 
last in our discussion of Christian authorities, the 
Church formularies, we find that the fundamental 
law of all the great Protestant denominations 
binds them to belief in the doctrine of universal 
depravity. 

In the Methodist Episcopal Church, articles 7, 
8, 9, 10, of the Articles of Religion, all either teach 
or else involve belief in this doctrine. The fullest 
statement is in article seven, where natural depra- 
vity is clearly stated under the caption, * * original 
or birth sin." These articles were arraigned by 
Mr. Wesley, and are forever unchangeable. 

In the Church of England, and in the Protestant 
Episcopal Church of America, the same formular- 
ies appear in the Thirty Nine Articles. In this col- 
lection they bear the numbers 9, 10, 11, 12. 

The Reformed Churches have three standards 
of belief, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic 
Confession, and the confessions of the Synod of 
Dort. Of these three the Heidelberg Catechism is 
the actual standard for the American branch of 
the Church, and each minister is required to 
preach its entire scheme of doctrine through, once 
in four years. 

We quote from this Catechism questions seven 
and eight, in which the doctrine of natural deprav- 
ity is particularly dealt with. 

*^7. Question: Whence then proceeds this de- 
pravity of human nature! Answer: From the 
fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam 



36 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

and Eve, in Paradise; hence our nature is become- 
so corrupt that we are conceived and born in sin.'' 
*'8. Question: Are we then so corrupt, that 
we are wholly incapable of doing any good, and in- 
clined to all wickedness? Answer: Indeed 
we are except we be regenerated by the Spirit of 
God.'' 

In the Presbyterian Church the standard is their 
*^ Confession of Faith." And the law of the 
Church requires that all its ministers shall endorse 
this before ordination. Chapter six of the confes- 
sion deals with the fall of man, and sections twO' 
and three in this chapter are as follows: — 

^'11. By this sin they fell from their original 
righteousness and communion with God, and so 
became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the 
faculties and parts of the body." 

''III. They being the root of all mankind, the 
guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death 
in sin and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their 
posterit^^ descending from them by ordinary gen- 
eration. ' ' 

In the Lutheran Churches, the Augsburg Con- 
fession sets forth the faith of the denomination, 
and its ministers are required to sign that docu- 
ment before ordination. Article three in this con- 
fession is a statement of the Reformed position as 
to man's natural depravity. 

In the Baptist Church, there is no close organi- 
zation, ministers are not required to pledge them- 
selves doctrinally before ordination; they do, how- 
ever, write a confession of faith. Doctrinal infidel- 
ity cannot be punished by formal trial, but simply 
by the forced retirement from their associations of 
any minister or Church which transgresses the 
consensus of faith. The two confessions, which are 
most widely accepted by individual churches 
among the Baptists, are the New Hampshire, 
and the Philadelphia confessions; in each 
of these there is a strong statement of the familiar- 
position on depravity. 



THE CHILD AND THE CHUECH. 37 

Returning to the Anglican and Methodist arti- 
<3le, let us notice it a little more particularly. 

*^ Original or birth sin'* is the caption, the text 
is as follows: — 

<< Original or birth sin standeth not in the fol- 
lowing of Adam as the Pelagians do vainly talk, 
but it is the corruption of the nature of every man, 
that naturally is engendered of the offspring of 
Adam, whereby man is very far gone from orig- 
inal righteousness, and of his own nature inclined 
to evil and that continually/' 

The form of this article is fortunate ; for the ref- 
erence to the rejected teaching of the Pelagians, 
gives to it the great exactness that comes from a 
positive and negative statement of a position. 

The Pelagian teaching rejected by our article 
can be expressed in four propositions: — 

1. Man was created mortal, so that sin did not 
at all cause his death. 

2. Original sin had no effect upon man's moral 
nature. 

3. Its actual results were the loss of Paradise, 
and condemnation to a life of toil. 

4. So far as posterity went, they were not in- 
volved at all. They each one begin life, morally, 
exactly where Adam did before his sin; and are 
only injured by his and others ' sin in so far as they 
furnish a bad example and influence. 

This teaching, originated by the British monk 
Pelagius in the fifth century, has been uniformly 
condemned and rejected by the Christian Church. 

If it were not for the fact that we have long since 
learned to expect old mistakes to be redressed and 
advanced as new discoveries, we might be surpris- 
<ed at the great similarity between the new theory 
of preventive salvation, and the old and discredit- 
ed Pela^ianism. 

The Pelagian denial that man became mortal 
through sin agrees nicely with the naturalistic and 
evolutionary sympathies of preventive salvation. 
The Pelagian denial of the fall, and its insistence 
that every man begins morally just where Adam 



38 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

did, is closely paralleled by the new assertion that 
every man is born morally neutral. And the Pel- 
agian conception, that the only evil consequence 
of IJie fall is the weight of a bad example and in- 
fluence which came into the world through it, is 
certainly echoed in our modern emphasis upon en- 
vironment, that is as blissfully ignorant of the de- 
praved nature as Pelagius himself. 

A single paragraph is sufficient to gather up our 
conclusions at this point. 

The Holy Scriptures, the consensus of Christian 
teaching in every century, and the formularies of 
all the Churches are clear and emphatic in their 
statement of the native sinfulness of human na- 
ture. 

The new theory of preventive salvation teaches 
that human nature has no native sinfulness, but 
that it starts morally neutral, and that it can be 
protected from falling into sin. Manifestly, such 
a teaching cannot be founded either upon the 
Christian Scriptures or upon Historic Christian- 
ity; and so far as the formularies of the Church go, 
it cannot be viewed as other than an open assault 
upon them. 



V. 

OTHER FAILURES OF THE NEW TEACHINO 
FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF HISTOR- 
IC CHRISTIANITY. 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 41 



V. 

But in addition to its rejection of native deprav- 
ity the new theory of preventive salvation differs 
from Historic Christianity in many details. A 
series of contrasted statements will bring out these 
differences clearly: — 

1. According to the new theory, salvation is a 
matter of growth and education ; it is an evolution, 
a development. In historic Christianity, salvation 
is essentially a rescue, a deliverance, a redemp- 
iion. The very name by which the new theory is 
called is a confusion; for ^ ^ prevention ' ' and *^ sal- 
vation ^ ' are as essentially contrary, as a deathless 
life is contrary to being raised from the dead. 

2. Conviction of sin has no place in the new 
program, whereas in the evangelical conception it 
is through the realization of sin that man 's natural 
pride of heart is broken, and the first step is tak- 
en in the welding of the new race. 

3. In the new program, faith is impersonal, it 
is something imparted by teaching during the 
years of early youth; in Historic Christianity on 
the contrary it is a definitely personal and moral 
act. In the new program faith has regard simply 
io God's general goodness, rather than to His 
Atoning and Regenerating work for the cure of 
sin, as in the historic system. 

4. Again in the new teaching all the natural 
tendencies, even including pride and wilfulness, 
have their place in the final character. True, they 
are to be limited by inculcated habits and princi- 
ples, and by the development of the ** heart's nat- 
ural spirittiality''; but as so regulated they are 
useful traits. Here again there is a wide contrast 
as compared with the evangelical conception, in 
which the same natural tendencies are looked up- 
on as depravity of heart that must be uprooted in 
the experience of repentance. And repentance is 



42 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

to St. Paul, an experience of such significance and 
depth, that he likened it to the death of the body. 

5. Again in preventive salvation the emphasis 
is put upon Christ the hero, the teacher, the ex- 
emplar; it puts little or no emphasis upon Christ, 
the atoning sacrifice, Christ the Almighty regen- 
erator of heart. But in the New Testament, on 
the contrary, Christ is constantly the Redeemer, 
the Saviour from sin, and the word ^ ' hero ' ' is not 
once used in connection with him. 

6. Yet once again in the new teaching the great 
personal act is one of self dedication to love and 
serve God and men; whereas in the evangelical 
teaching it is an exercising of personal faith in the 
Saviour, with a peculiar emphasis ujDon His aton- 
ing death. We cannot mistake the contrast here. 
The act of self dedication, springs out of self con- 
scious worth and power. The act of faith in the 
Saviour, springs out of shame and self hopeless- 
ness. The act of self dedication gives to Cod 
something that is worthy. The act of faith ex- 
pects from God forgiveness of sin and spiritual 
renewing through the atoning death and risen life 
of the Saviour. 

Finally the contrast between the two plans of 
salvation in their psychology is striking. Evan- 
gelical salvation is actually erecting a homogen- 
ius, welded brotherhood on the basis of certain 
deep and common moral experiences. The social 
consciousness developed within the Wesley an re- 
vival movement, is one illustration of this efficien- 
cy in the historic gospel, and the relatively lower 
efficiency of the recent Wesleyan social programs 
to do the same thing, further emphasizes it. The- 
psychology of the Gospel's social efficiency can be 
set out in four principal items : — 

L Conviction of sin and repentence breaks 
pride and puts an end to its divisive tendencies. 
Nor does the later experience of salvation renew 
them; for salvation is entirely apart from merity. 
by faith in the wonderous grace of God; conse- 
quently it does not stimulate pride. 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 45 

2. The commonness of this deep experience of 
repentance, is the first basis for a perfect sympa-^ 
thy and mutual understanding among redeemed 
men. 

3. The commonness of the wonderful exper- 
ience of forgiveness, regeneration and adoption, 
added to repentance, is the sufficient basis for the 
complete unification of redeemed men into a new 
race or brotherhood. In every fundamental ex- 
perience the race life is common, and so its perfect 
homogeneity and sympathy is secured. 

4. Every attitude of every individual in his re- 
lation to the new race is intensely personal; it is- 
never a habit, but always a personal bearing. 

In contrast to ttiese items under the plan of pre- 
ventive salvation, pride is not crushed in any 
great experience of self despair and faith, but it is 
an integral part of the final character. Neither 
are there any great common experiences welding 
redeemed men into one. While impersonal atti- 
tudes of mind implanted in early childhood, as 
well as impersonal habits of conduct, have a prom- 
inent place in the finished character at which it 
aims. 

Preventive salvation is thus seen to be an as- 
sault not only upon one of the foundations of 
Christianity, its belief in man's fall and need of 
redemption, but it is an assault upon the whole 
system; for even where it does not antagonize the 
Christian program it ignores it. 



yi. 

THE RISE OF THE NEW TEACHING AND 
CHRISTIAN CONSTRUING OF THE 
FACTS UPON WHICH IT IS BASED. 



THE'CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 47 



VI. 

The constant novelty of the new teaching may 
.^at first be a surprise to us, we wonder how any- 
thing so continually foreign to Christian thought 
xjould appear as a development of the Apostolic 
doctrines. But the new teaching is not a develop- 
ment of these doctrines, nor can it be related to 
them in any systematic statement of the faith. It 
is a product of naturalistic evolutipn, where this 
hypothesis comes into immediate contact with 
Christian faith, in the science of psychqlogy, and 
more especially of religious psychology. 

One very prominent exponent of the new pro- 
gram, a Sunday School editor, thus explains his 
sympathy with it : ' ^ I am not, ' ' he says, * * an orig- 
inal investigator, I have simply taken the conclus- 
ions of secular scientists in this field, who have no 
theological bias, and made them the basis for my 
^own teaching. '^ 

One such secular scientist, to whom reference 
is repeatedly made, is Dr. Edwin Kirkpatrick. The 
title of the best known of Dr. Kirkpatrick 's works 
on this subject is, ** Fundamentals of Child 
Study. ' ' In this book he has made a study of 
child life, and noticed a close similarity between 
the instincts of young children and those of ani- 
mals. From this similarity of birth traits he 
concludes that these traits are all normal in chil- 
dren, and consequently cannot be marks of a fall. 
Dr. Kirkpatrick teaches that in early youth these 
instincts should be developed; for he says a prop- 
er strength of egotism and self-assertion develop- 
ed in childhood has an important influence upon 
mature character. Later, during adolescence, he 
points out other instincts will appear, which will 
make it possible to limit and regulate those that 
were born with the child; and so to socialize his 
perfectly proper early selfishness and pride. 

Christian Theology is perfectly willing to accept 
iacts, and it makes no objection to Dr. Kiykpat- 



48 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

rick's facts, but it must challenge his conclusions. 
Christian thought concerning human origins is- 
quite indifferent as to whether or not the ground 
plan of man 's nature conformed to the type of the 
highest animal life; the essential Christian item is- 
that God made man something splendidly more 
than animals; and that included in this addition, 
was man's moral and spiritual nature, and his 
power personally to realize and fellowship with 
God. 

As thus created man was fully able to organize 
his moral life, to make himself by a personal choice 
all that God meant him to be; toward God, a son; 
and toward men, a brother. Or, in other words^ 
as created, man could experience the push of the 
organic motive: the sense of duty and love press- 
ing him to a constant yielding of his whole free- 
dom in joyous obedience to God, to live out His 
blessed will for him in holy love. 

This ability to feel the push of the organic mo- 
tive, and consequently the ability morally to or- 
ganize his life is what Christian theology means 
by man's original holiness. The fact that by sin 
he lost this power is what it means by the fall. 
And the fact that his present state is one of moral 
impotency is what it means by natural depravity. 

In its philosophy of depravity Christian theo- 
logy has always put the emphasis upon the fact 
that man suffered a deep loss in his moral and 
spiritual nature, thus: Dr. Curtis says ^^whert 
Adam sinned, he lost the inward consciousness 
and intimacy of God; and conscience, which is 
left to him, is but a fragment of his former rich 
moral and spiritual nature. ' ' 

Similarly, Dr. Miley teaches that ** depravity is 
by deprivation"; it is man's loss of the indwell- 
ing Spirit, a loss that has thrown his whole moral 
life into confusion. 

If then, depravity should be held to be due to a 
deprivation of God's indwelling Spirit, it would 
manifest itself in exactly the phenomena Dr. Kirk- 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 49 

Patrick describes, namely, a similarity in instincts 
between animals and men. 

The Christian thinker can admit that animals 
and men are very much alike, as to a certain 
ground plan of their being; and then, believing 
that man by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost was 
at first made something splendidly more, he can. 
also believe that having lost this divine indwell- 
ing, he fell back toward the beast. 

On such an hypothesis the renewed dominance 
of animal instincts in men, and the resulting con- 
fusion in man's moral life, would be the manifes- 
tation of what theology has called native deprav- 
ity. The dominance of animal instincts vvould 
thus be, not a sign of incomplete evolution, as Dr. 
Kirkpatrick teaches; but rather of an awful loss 
man has suffered in his moral and spiritual nature. 
How perfectly such an interpretation of the facts. 
answers to the very language of the Scriptures, 
will be immediately felt, when now we read again 
such a statement as that of Jesus to Nicodemus,. 
' ^ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which 
is born of the Spirit is spirit.'' In other words, 
man until reborn of the Spirit may be said to be 
little more than an animal. 

The reply that the exponents of preventive sal- 
vation would probably make to this interpretation 
of the facts, would be: first, to point out that other 
instincts develop in the human individual, during 
adolescence, as a feature of his natural growth; 
and second, to make the claim, that since, when 
thus equ.ipped the organization of character is; 
possible, that it is therefore manifest mankind has 
suffered no deprivation, but rather that this low 
start and gradual unfolding must be regarded as 
the plan of his being. 

Such a reply does not for a moment embarass 
the Christian thinker; for he denies the Christian 
worth of the character that can thus be organized. 
The motivity in all natural character is self -cen- 
tered, and proud, and self-assertive on this basis. 
Such a motivity may be made to work out a cer-- 



50 THE CHILD AND THE CHUECH. 

tain refinement, and even benevolence of conduct, 
but it is no substitute for Christian motivity: it 
pan neither organize the race, found the blessed- 
ness of the individual, nor bear the scrutiny of the 
holiness of God. 

Thus, I will not steal, because to be a thief is 
unworthy of me; or, I want to be benevolent, be- 
cause it is admirable, and I want to be what I ad- 
mire. Either of these will illustrate man's natur- 
al motivity, either of them will promote social or- 
der, but neither of them is of any final moral 
Avorth. 

The motivity recognized by the New Testament, 
is of course vastly different; we have already 
sought to define it, but perhaps a further state- 
ment will assist clearness. 

Repentance, which stands at the very threshold 
of Christian character, is at once the end of man 's 
natural motivity, and the foundation of his new 
moral life. The New Testament gives expression 
to that which is achieved through this experience 
in its phrases, ^'to lose oneself," and ^^to deny 
oneself. '' 

The essential truth here is that the individual 
soul has now finally yielded up its inorganic mo- 
tivity. Self in every sense has been wrenched out 
of the center of its life; and in place of the glory 
of pride, which so fills the natural heart, is a sense 
of deep poverty, a '^ destitution of spirit" that 
waits for the fulfillment of the Saviour's first be- 
atitude, ^'Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs 
is the Kingdom of Heaven." 

How fully our Christian poets have grasped this 
lowliness of heart, and put it into the hymnology 
of the Church; thus Mr. Wesley writes, 

^' Jesus, the sinner's friend, to Thee 
Lost and undone for aid I flee." 

.and Charlotte Elliot writes, 

*' Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind; 

Sight, riches, healing of the mind, 

Yea, all I need in Thee to find 
-^ Lamb of God, I come, I come. " ._ . 1 



^ THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 51 

And the sainted John Wesley himself, when at the 
very end of his wonderful life, seized the same 
great truth, in the words, 

* ^ I the chief of sinners am. 

But Jesus died for me. ' ' 

First of all then a Christian character is one from 
which all personal pride has been removed, and 
which has become a bearing of lowliness. 

Founded upon this lowliness is the rich and ever 
increasing bearing of faith. The full Christian 
ideal is that bearing of perfect Sonship, which 
Jesus expressed when he said, **My meat is to do 
the will of Him that sent me and to finish His 
work. ' ' And God has called us to enter into such a 
perfect communion with the Saviour, as that our 
hearts, first in-breathing His will, through faith, 
just as our bodies breath the air, shall afterwards 
live it out in word and deed. 

Action for the Christian is controlled, neither 
by good habits, nor by noble principles, but by a 
personal bearing of faith toward the Saviour. 
^^Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every 
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God/' 
said Jesus; and to have God within us, and His 
word living within us, so that we can love it and 
feel that to live it out is our meat and drink, this 
is the only Christian conception of character. 

Christian character is thus seen to be a personal 
bearing from which all self worthiness, and self 
will are excluded, and in which the lowly heart, 
with conscious freedom, is forever yielding itself 
in passionate, joyous obedience to the Saviour 
through faith. How widely such a character dif- 
fers from that which can be achieved naturally 
through education is apparent enough. The one 
is founded upon the instincts of pride, self will, 
altruism, etc., and upon the ** natural spirit- 
uality of the human heart. ' ' It consists of a num- 
ber of firmly fixed habits and principles of action 
suitable for the guidance of a life pledged to serve 
God and men. It is, and must be, a self centered 



52 THE CHILD AND THE CHUECH. 

life. Christian character, on the contrary, is" 
founded upon a denial of self, a yielding up of self, 
to receive from God grace and truth unto salvation^ 
and righteousness. It is a God-centered life. Said 
Jesus, ^^ Except a man deny himself he cannot be 
my disciple. ' ' To illustrate the difference, natural 
character, as the exponents of the new programme 
hope to achieve it, may be likened to a building 
that had been erected block by block, that stands 
upon its own foundation, that is magnificent, and 
that at length, seeing itself, appreciates the beauty 
of what has been done in it and says, ''This is 
w^orthy of me, I will be all this. ' ' 

''But Christian character is," says Jesus, like 
the helpless branch of some mighty vine, that 
comes at length to see that in itself it is nothing; 
that then yields its proud self-sufficiency and puts 
all its strength into one long purpose of clinging. 
It dwells in the vine, it feels the flow of the vine's 
vital force, and quite simply brings forth rich 
fruit; not to the glory of self, but to the glory of 
God. 

These statements have doubtless made suffici^ 
ently clear the distinction between Christian char- 
acter and that which is naturally possible through 
the organization of man's birth and adolescent in- 
stincts; so that it is possible for the Christian 
thinker emphatically to assert two things: first, 
that natural religious development is not a sub- 
stitute for spiritual re-creation; and second, that 
man 's condition of moral helplessness, in the pres- 
ence of the divine ideal, is due to natural deprav- 
ity. 



VII. 

A CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF THE CHILD 

AND OF HIS RELATION TO THE 

CHURCH. 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 55 



VII. 

Tlie next question that we want to consider in 
this study is the actual relation of the child to 
the Saviour and to the Church. 

This question has been all along the objective 
of our stud}^, and there can be only one answer to 
it; for unless we are to sacrifice the truth of free- 
dom and moral responsibility, we must hold that 
the child is born a probationer on trial for moral 
beatification. To claim that he is born a child of 
God, because not having committed personal sin 
he cannot have forfeited the sonship that is his 
by creation, is simply to deny the whole Biblical 
doctrine of the fall and consequent depravity of 
man, for which we have been contending. To 
claim that he is unconditionally regenerated, or 
regenerated on the condition of baptism, is to deny 
moral responsibility. The only alternative then 
is that which we have chosen, to hold him a pro- 
bationer, whose natural motivity is inorganic, and 
who is on trial for moral beatification. 

As a probationer under such conditions tbe Sav- 
iour adequately described His relation to Himself 
in the parable of the lost sheep. He is one in the 
great mAiltitude of m^arred lives, which the divine 
love in Jesus Christ came to seek and to save. 
"Within this general fact, that the child is a proba- 
tionary personality, is one peculiar fact, namely, 
that he has a relatively greater susceptibility to 
influence during youth. This peculiarity would 
warrant two conclusions: one, that the child is 
guarded in a peculiar way by divine providence 
during youth; and the other, that its relation to the 
Church, during the same time, is also in some 
sense peculiar. 

But before developing this truth we must di- 
gress here for a moment to clear up one source of 
difficulty that is constantly confusing this discus-' 
sion. The whole Christian Church is a unit in 



56 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

its conviction as to the salvation of all children 
who die in early youth. It is unthinkable that any 
soul should be lost, whose sinfulness of heart has 
not been completed in a full denial of God, and 
in a denial of God that has gained objective ex- 
pression in conduct; consequently we must think 
of the children who die in youth as having in some 
way won the crown, — but how ? 

The conception that all children are born in the 
Kingdom of God, and that they remain in it until 
by personal transgressions they have separated 
themselves from it, would provide an easy solu- 
tion for the difficulty. But when we stop to con- 
sider the import of the su2;^gestion, we see im- 
mediately its impossibility; for not only is it con- 
trary to the teaching of natural depravity, but 
it is psychologically absurd. The central note in 
lthe Kingdom is personal holiness; by definition, 
therefore, no one can be in the Kingdom who has 
not holiness as a personal bearing. The new-born 
child certainly has a bias in its nature against 
holiness, but it as certainly has no personal bear- 
ing at all, holy or otherwise; it is consequently as 
absurd to speak of its being born in The Kingdom 
;as to speak of its being born a scholar. 

The peculiar difficulty of this question which 
every Arminian thinker must face has always 
been recognized. Dr. Watson puts it in a very 
frank way. Pie points out that in all salvation 
divine grace leads us to repentance, and assists us 
in the exercise of personal faith; only, as he re- 
minds us, the faith that is exercised is personal, 
and therefore involves some measure of free de- 
cision. To find a place for this item of free per- 
sonal decision is, he points out, the problem in 
construing infant salvation. 

Having located the difficulty he makes no effort 
to explain it, but simply concludes that God's rev- 
elation is not a complete statement of His phil- 
osophy, rather it is only a revelation of the plan of 
salvation for intelligent, moral personalities. 

Dr. Miley's position is about the same. He in- 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 57 

Bists that all cMldren are born with depraved 
natures needing regeneration. As to how regen- 
eration is to be provided for them, he merely says, 
^ * This regeneration is the work of the Holy Spirit, 
and is a work provided for by the Atonement in 
Christ, as are all the offices of the Spirit in the 
economy of salvation.'' The fact that his treat- 
ment of infant salvation is in the section dealing 
with what he calls ^^the unconditional benefits of 
the Atonement," might be some warrant for 
claiming that Dr. Miley believed infant salvation 
to be a sovereign act of divine grace; but the po- 
sition is contrary to freedom, the fundamental 
truth of Arminian theology, and it seems more 
probable that he merely meant to express his faith 
in the salvation of children who die in infancy 
and to admit his inability to explain its philoso- 
phy. 

Dr. Curtis' effort to handle this difficult ques- 
tion is beautiful, and will certainly be a great help 
to many. It entirely meets the Arminian need for 
an exercise of personal freedom, and it is perfectly 
reasonable; the only criticism that can be laid 
against it is that it is not specifically taught in 
the Scriptures, and that in the very nature of 
things it can gain no support from human ex- 
periences. It would require too much space to 
set the view forth in any adequate way here, we 
must satisfy ourselves with the single suggestion 
that Dr. Curtis regards the death experience, the 
very instant of mortality, as the final probationary 
event in every life, infants included. He fully 
realizes that this view makes necessary a super- 
natural, instantaneous maturing of the dying in- 
fant's mind, and an infallible knowledge by God 
that every dying child will choose faith in that 
first probationary moment. But these two neces- 
sities are no difficulty for His thought: for the 
second, that of God's infallible fore-knowledge, 
is an admitted divine attribute; and the first, that 
of God's giving instant maturity to the dying in- 
fant's mind, involves only a daring belief in God's 



58 THE CHILD AND THE CHUECH. 

supernatural power. To the careful thinker the 
giving of instantaneous maturity to an infant 
mind will only be so much more difficult than the 
instantaneous changing of water into wine, as psy- 
chology is more mysterious than organic chemis- 
try. Dr. Curtis' view will not appeal to many 
minds but the least that can be said for it is that 
it is an interesting effort to clear up this difficulty 
in Arminian theology. 

Returning now to the peculiar note in the child's 
relation to the Saviour and to the Church. A 
wonderful watch-care that fully recognizes and 
relates itself to the child's relatively larger sus- 
ceptibility to influence, is all that can be meant in 
either case. It was just this wonderful watch-care 
of the Father over little children to which Jesus 
must have referred, when Pie said to His disciples, 
^ ' Take heed that ye despise not one of these little 
ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their 
angels do always behold the face of my Father. '^ 
^ ' Not a sparrow f alleth without your Father, fear 
not, yea are of more value than many sparrows.'* 
How great then must be the Divine watch-care 
over little children during those years of suscep- 
tibility; and not only over children in Christian 
lands, but over all children. With a tenderness 
that is infinite, with a concern that is immense,. 
with a wisdom that is perfect, we must believe 
Divine Providence to guard in every land, and in 
every age, the little children, — and 3^et heathen- 
dom is midnight in sin, and Christendom is how 
shadowed. What an evidence is here of the fall 
and present depravity of the race. 

The peculiarity of the child's relation to the 
Church is similar, it is simply the possibility of 
the Church's duplicating toward it some measure 
of the wonderful watch-care of God. 

Is the child then naturally a member of the 
Church ! To the Church invisible, the actual body 
of Christ, the child has no more relation than any 
other unholy probationary personality. It is sim- 
ply a sin-marred life on trial for moral beatifica- 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 5^ 

tion. A Cliristian motivity received through the 
renewing of one's life is the unalterable condition 
of membership in the body of Christ. 

But to the Church visible, the organized Church 
in the world, the child should have the most intim- 
ate relation that is possible short of membership; 
but to give him membership itself, would be to de- 
ceive him. Baptism and something similar to the 
probationary membership of the Methodist 
Church expresses his relation, only he should be 
taught that his final full membership in the Body 
of Christ is conditioned not upon his remaining 
what he is, but upon his becoming, through regen- 
eration, what now he is not, a holy personality. 

The Church should put every possible influence 
about the child to protect him from the allure- 
ments of the world, and to press him toward re- 
pentance and faith, to teach the practical details of 
Christian life, to encourage their expression in 
conduct, to teach the beauty of the Holy God, and 
to emphasize the duty of loving Him. 

All of these things are useful, they will help the 
child ; only the Church, and everyone who exercis- 
es the teaching office in it, must fully realize the 
necessity not only for right conduct, but for a re- 
generate motivity. Right conduct may be the ex- 
pression of a selfish heart; and as such, no matter 
how socially useful, from the standpoint of final 
values it is worthless. 

The Church can do much for the child. How 
many people as they look back to their hour of 
greatest religious crises, can see that for them the 
enticements of sin were never exaggerated by the- 
allurements of worldly pleasure? It is a gift of 
the Church to the child. 

How many, too, looking back to the days of 
childhood can see how the very atmosphere in 
which they grew up held a constant emphasis up- 
on the feeling that they owed their very hearts ta 
God 1 It is a gift of the Church to the child. And 
again, how many remember of this same Christian 
atmosphere, the wonderful sense of hope that wa^ 



-60 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

in it — tile sense that when they gave their hearts 
to God He would respond in a gracious renewing 
of their motives, and of their whole being? It is 
£i gift of the Church to the child. 

And yet again, how many remember, when 
through faith those great new motives had been 
experienced, that at once they were able to ex- 
press themselves in beautiful conduct? It is the 
teaching of their youth, the gift of the Church to 
the Child. 

Yes, the Church can do much for the child, but it 
eaiinot protect him from the moral peril of his own 
natural motivity. Sometime, somewhere, the 
proud, self-centered wilfulness of the heart must 
be surrendered in an act of repentance. Some- 
time, somewhere, the whole being must be opened 
to the inflow of God in the act of faith. 

And let no one say, ^'I never had such an ex- 
perience,'' for to have had it and to have it is as 
much the human mark of a Christian as the bap- 
tism of the Holy Ghost is the divine mark. 

The new-born infant began to breathe, every 
XQother 's heart will quicken at the memory of that 
first weak cry, and now it lives by breathing; how 
silly for the infant to say, ''I never had such an 
experience," when to have had it and to have it 
is the condition of living. So, too, with the Chris- 
tian, the day he does not breathe repentance and 
faith he backslides; for to be in Christ one must 
ever be both denying self, in the sense of per- 
gonal unworthiness, and opening the heart to the 
inflow of God, in the bearing of faith. 

What but this could be the meaning of the dying 
testimony of the greatest Christian saints? Take 
as an example Mr. Wesley's careful statement: 

''I have been reflecting on my past life; I have 
l)een wandering up and down between fifty and 
sixty years, endeavoring in my poor way to do a 
little good to my fellow creatures; and now it is 
possible that there are but few steps between me 
and death; and what have I to trust in for salva- 
tion ? I can see nothing that I have done or suffer- 



THE CHILD AND THE CHUECH. 61 

ed that will bear looking at. I have no other plea 
than this, 

' ' I the chief of sinners am, 
But Jesus died for me/' 
Here is a clear sense of deep, personal unworth- 
iness, and of faith in the Saviour as one's only 
hope, standing as the careful statement of one of 
the world 's giant souls ; and a statement made, too, 
when he realized himself to be at the very thres- 
hold of the Throne of God. No comment is neces- 
sary, — but we average men need to be very careful 
of our easy assurance as to personal worthiness. 
We have never ^^^et been thus consciously near 
that Presence — sublime, awful, majestic. 



VIII. 

A PERSONAL EXPEEIENCE ILLUSTRATING 

THE NEW TEACHING, AND ITS POINTS 

OF FAILURE, AND SHOWING ANEW 

THE DEEP AND ABIDING TRUTH 

OF TPIE HISTORIC FAITH. ] 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 65. 



VIII. "' ' ■ 

Dr. Bowne in his metaphysics insists often on 
the necessity of concrete thinking, if we mean to 
avoid the pitfalls of philosophy; and recognizing 
the wisdom of his insistence, our study ends with 
an experience. In doing this, however, we need 
to be on our guard against another danger, that of 
making experience a source of Christian doctrine. 
Experience is valuable, as an assistance in conceiv- 
ing and illustrating the truth of God's Word; but 
it cannot be substituted for God's Word, as being 
in itself a source of Christian doctrine. The falli- 
bility of man's whole moral and intellectual life 
is a sufficient reason for this position, and the num- 
erous conflicting conclusions from experience is a 
sufficient evidence of man's fallibility. That ex- 
perience of which, above all others, a man can 
speak of with authority is his own. Others may 
see deeds, but only God and our hearts can know 
and evaluate motives; consequently, instead of 
appealing to the many experiences of which we 
know more or less superficially, we will tell the 
story of one experience which we know thor- 
oughly. 

I was born in a Christian home of the Methodist 
type, and was brought up in the atmosphere of 
church life, prayer, and Bible reading. The fam- 
ily prayer circle is among my very early recollec- 
tions. Mother did not believe in physical punish- 
ment, but whenever we did wrong she used to take 
us to her room and pray with us ; consequently, my 
thought about sin, way back almost to my infancy^ 
was that it was something very wrong that deeply 
grieved the good God. I cannot recollect the first 
time mother told me how untruth grieved Him, 
but it was before I was five years old. My earliest 
recollection of the sense of sin was in my sixth 
year; the occasion was a deliberate untruth told 
to avoid punishment for a disobedience. Mother 



66 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

had forbidden us children sliding down the stone 
edging of the front stoop. I did it again, and fell, 
skinning my fore-head. To avoid punishment for 
disobedience I gave an untruthful explanation of 
the marks on my face. Mother believed me and I 
was not punished. I have other recollections of 
feeling mean and ashamed, but none that stands 
out definitely as this one does. 

I remember distinctly my religious life in those 
days; it had quite a rich content but was lacking 
in the sense of reality. I believed the Bible was 
God's word but it meant nothing to me. I heard 
it read at prayer time, and mother often read it 
to me, but I never enjoyed it. Once when I was 
sick mother read me the story of Joseph. It in- 
terested me that afternoon, but it is the only early 
association of the Bible that has left a pleasant 
memory. I always said my prayers, and one night 
when father was hearing me I clasped my hands 
and looked up to be like a real saint. Father 
praised me for this but I never did it again. I 
used often to pray for lost top-plugs or marbles, 
but when I found them I never thanked God: for 
I did not suppose for a minute that He had helped 
me. Praying was for me no more real than my 
shrinking from counting funeral carriages; it was 
simply the feeling that if there was anything in 
either I v^as going to have the advantage. 

Sunday was so faithfully observed in my home 
that the day has always had a peculiar loveliness 
for me, and even to the present time the calm of 
Sunday has a strange beauty that is rich in mean- 
ing. 

Only two revival meetings during those early 
years made any impression; one in my sixth year, 
the other in my ninth. The first was only a scene 
to me, it meant nothing; the second I understood 
perfectly, and felt the appeal of the evangelist. I 
knew I ought to repent and surrender, I both want- 
ed to, and did not want to go to the altar; but re- 
fused and tried to satisfy myself by postponing the 
duty till my twelfth year. A sister had been beau- 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 67 

tifully converted at the age of twelve, and it had 
made a deep impression on my mind. It was, how- 
ever, five years after this first refusal of salvation 
before I made any attempt to find the Saviour. 
Once or twice my heart was stirred with religious 
emotion, but most of the time I lived contentedly 
enough in selfishness and pride, often deceiving 
my family to gain some end I valued. The most 
marked recollection of these years is of the con- 
flict between my desire for play and my ambition 
to make a success of life. I had a deep seated fear 
that I might be a failure; yet I would often look at 
my books crosseyed so as to make my eyes pain, 
that I might have an excuse to play rather than 
study. Always I went regularly to church and 
Sunday School, and much of the time to Junior 
Epworth League; but from twelve on I much pre- 
ferred Church services because there seemed to be 
more in them. My first effort to find the Saviour 
was in my fourteenth year. My motive was fear 
of the divine judgment upon sin. The immediate 
occasion was a sermon by Dr. Talmage on the end 
of the world, which mother read to us from the 
Christian Herald one evening in the parlor. The 
motive was a fear of Christ's judgment on sin. No 
one had said anything to me but as I sat there lis- 
tening to the sermon my heart was stirred and I 
determined to get converted that night. Conse- 
quently, I left the parlor, went to my room, got 
down on my knees to stay there until the exper- 
ience of forgiveness came. After kneeling awhile 
I began to doubt that anything was going to hap- 
pen, but decided to stay on, because it would be 
the easiest way of acquainting the family with my 
new purpose. It must have been an hour that I 
knelt there, and when at length I rose it was with- 
out any experience, but with a settled purpose to 
escape God's judgment on sin. 

I joined the Church, and was regarded in that 
congregation as an unusually good boy; because 
the strength of my mother's character had fasten- 
ed on my life a certain refinement that appeared 



68 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

well. But during all those years from 14 to 20 I 
was actually a proud, dominating, self-centered 
youth. 

As early as twelve my ambition was very strong.. 
I began then to write a United States history, and 
persisted at the task for months. At 17 I began 
to write a Commentary of the Gospels; and I ac- 
tually worked out, without ever having seen one, a 
harmony of the Gospels. I studied Isaiah through 
with a Commentary, memorized whole books of 
the Bible, mastered the outline of the Saviour's 
life so that I could tell both its events in succes- 
sion, and also in what chapter the records might 
be found. I used to keep this reviewed, by repeat- 
ing it on the street; for I thought that only con- 
stant application would insure any success in life. 
I remember, too, how in those days I used to stop 
tramps and drunkards, and reprove them on the 
streets, and how I used to exhort my companions 
about religion and about going to Church. But I 
did all these things for conscience's sake, because 
they belonged to my ideal of myself. 

Two things alone in that whole period were mor- 
ally real; one was my search for intellectual cer- 
tainty concerning God and immortality, and the 
other was my effort to attain a Christian exper- 
ience. For the first I gave up all light reading 
and devoted myself to philosophy, the best litera- 
ture, and sermons. For the second I made myself 
a slave to duty. I had about given up all hope of 
anything supernatural, and had come to believe 
that approval before God was by moral obedience, 
and at the task of attaining to such an obedience 
I worked determinedly. Again and again I dared 
and sacrificed for duty. I used to keep a moral 
journal, and each night before retiring would 
make careful examination of the failures of the 
day, seeking to find their basic motive that I mi2;'ht 
wrestle with them fundamentally. I kept this 
diary three years, and wrote it honestly; I wrote 
it when for months together my heart was heavy 
with the agony of failure. 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 69 

My greatest struggle was to fulfill the command 
of the New Testament, to love God and men. I 
was utterly unable to do either, and this law was 
like a sword that pierced my very soul. I admired 
the idea of God, but it was only an idea, a word 
that I used in my effort to understand myself. I 
had reasoned my way to theism, and God was the 
intellectual conclusion at the end of the argument, 
but He was unreal, and I could not love Him. In 
all my life God had never been truly real to me, 
not even in childhood; and when I came to young 
manhood, and lived amid its intense and expand- 
ing interests, God seemed to be only a name, — and 
who can love a mere name I 

This is a very important point to keep clearly 
in mind — God had never been real to me. Very 
early in life I had a sense of that need for some-' 
thing infinite, to which Carlyle gives such tremen- 
dous expression in the sentence, *^ There is not 
enough candy and sweetmeats in the confectionery 
shops of Europe to satisfy the soul of one street 
gamin of the city of Paris. ' ' And as a lad of only 
thirteen years after returning from a children's 
party, I remember sitting down on the edge of my 
bed and struggling in real distress over a wasted 
evening. But the grief was from a sense of larger 
possibilities in me, a personal ambition that I was 
anxious to realize, and not at all from a sense of 
duty to God. God was only a name, that I was 
utterly powerless either to realize or love. 

So, too, with loving men, they were never truly 
real to me. In their own separate interest I never 
realized them until I was nineteen. Before that 
companions were only necessities of my pleasure. 
1 remember the startled sense with which, when 
as a lad of nineteen, ridina: on my wheel around 
the corner of 47th and Baltimore avenue in Phila- 
delphia, I first t'ruly saw that it was as hard for 
others to suffer and to fail as it was for me. All 
through those four years of striving, from my sev- 
enteenth to my twenty-first year, I did sacrifice for 
others, but the motive was always my ideal of 



70 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

myself. During those same years also I used to 
read the moral philosophizings of Aurelius Anton- 
ius, Epicitetus, Emerson and others; and I enjoy- 
ed discoursing about them to my friends, as I did 
about altruism and justice; this was especially 
true during my seventeenth and eighteenth year. 

Then I was a socialist and hated poverty, made 
a study of English Communism, and wrote quite a 
paper on the subject, ''Communism the panacea 
for all social ills. ' ' I was conscientiously benevo- 
lent, and if on the street I ever went past a blind 
or lame beggar without helping him, conscience 
would invariably make me go back, sometimes one 
block and sometimes even two. 

These are only a few items from the recollections 
of those days of moral striving. I had an ideal 
and was willing to make any sacrifice, except the 
Christian one, to enter into it. I was proud and 
self-centered, with a strong and clear sense of 
duty, and with large force of will : my problem was 
by my will to achieve an obedience to duty on the 
basis of a proud, self-centered motivity. I had no 
faith toward God, I had no love toward God or 
men. The atonement in the cross of Jesus was of- 
fensive to my sense of justice. I was convinced, 
that Methodism was an excitement and a mistake. 

I distinctly remember my resentment at a ser- 
mon preached by Dr. O'Hanlon on the sinfulness 
of the merely moral man. My creed was "I be- 
lieve in the duty of loving.^' But before that 
creed I was a failure, and knew it. I sought to 
govern my thought and conduct by this creed, and 
hoped at length thus to achieve the renovation of 
my motivity. How plainly now I can see the hope- 
lessness of what then was my hope. The differ- 
ence between the branch, and the parasite that is 
growing beside it on the same tree, is this : the par- 
asite is individual and the branch is social. The 
parasite uses the tree for its own ends; or conceiv- 
ing it humanly, the parasite's motivity is individ- 
ualistic, selfish; but the branch, on the contrary, 
belongs to the tree, they are organically one, the 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 71 

branch's motivity is social or organic. My motiv- 
ity in those days was like that of the parasite. Ev- 
erything I did or tried to do had as its final aim a 
desire to be worthy before my own conscience, and 
at the judgment bar of God. I had divided the 
universe into two, myself and the rest of it; and I 
used the rest of it, God included, simply to satisfy 
myself. I was doing this even when I was sacri- 
ficing myself for duty. My natural motivity was 
parasitical rather than organic, and I was perfect- 
ly powerless to stimulate, within my heart, any or- 
ganic motive. 

I did not understand this then but how fully now 
I appreciate it. This is what St. Paul meant when 
he said, ' ' They that are in the flesh cannot please 
God; for the mind of the flesh is not subject to the 
law of God, neither indeed is it able to be." 

Before giving an account of how all this strug- 
gle and failure came to an end, I want out of jus- 
tice to add a word of appreciation of my home. 
From earliest childhood I was taught that I be- 
longed to God, and this teaching was sustained by 
a home life that was beautifully and simply relig- 
ious. Family prayers, in which we children used 
to take part by reading in rotation verses of the 
Bible ; the family pew in Church, — and we were all 
there twice on Sunday; family attendance at the 
Sunday School in which both our parents taught; 
family conversations on religion by mother; a fam- 
ily reverence for the Bible and the Lord's day. In 
our home no book ever lay on the Bible and no 
games were ever played on Sunday. I remember 
distinctly those Sunday evenings before supper 
when we all sang Christian hvmns around the 
piano in the parlor. Such was the home in which 
I grew up. I would not claim for it that it was the 
best home a child could have, but I would claim 
this, that no graded lessons, and no expert in child 
training during the weeklv hour of a Sunday 
School service, could have done for me what that 
home life did. It taught me the New Testament 
ideal, with a great emphasis upon the law of love 



(72 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. "' 

as stated in tlie Golden Rule. It impressed upon 
me the truth that I belonged to God. I was 
taught from infancy that my mother had given me 
to God to preach His Gospel, if He should call me; 
and that conception was never entirely out of my 
expectation. It taught me neighborliness, hones- 
ty, truthfulness, gentleness, generosity. It exer- 
cised me in right conduct, it utterly protected me 
from coarse temptations and from every fascina- 
iion of worldliness. Yet it entirely failed to or- 
ganize my life in Godliness and love, and it failed 
to do this even after my own will had fully endors- 
ed all its ideals. 

But returning, the end of all this moral striving 
and failure came very wonderfully and yet very 
simply. It is best stated in four experiences. The 
first was when I came to my limit intellectually. 
I was a student at Drew, and was passionately try- 
ing to master Christian doctrine. One afternoon 
while walking down the path to the lower entrance 
of the campus, I was trying to think my way 
through theistic philosophy, v/hen suddenly a 
sweep of difficulty confronted and quite over- 
-whelmed me. I suddenly lost all hope of explain- 
ing deity, and then for the first time realized in- 
tellectual limitations. I saw that a knowledge of 
<xod could not be intellectually attained, and I 
realized that if I was ever to know Him, it must be 
through faith. That moment was the first in which 
1 had ever realized personal helplessness, and 
dared to rest in hope and trust toward God. 

The second experience followed a Seminary 
(prayer meeting. Dr. Curtis led. His theme was, 
^^The centralness of the Redeemer in everything 
Christian. ' ' His emphasis confused me, I did not 
understand either the cross, or the centralness of 
the Saviour's person; mv creed was, *^I believe in 
the duty of loving.'' But my assurance had al- 
ready been shattered by the previous experience, 
and I went out from the meeting to walk in the 
night and meditate. I do not recollect the progress 
of my thinking, save that I was trying to under- 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 73 

;stand sin, redemption, and faith. I was sad, sad- 
ness was then often my experience; the conscious- 
ness of failure had worn down my courage, and the 
.sense of sin often uttterly overshadowed my hope. 
It was night, I was walking on the Seminary cam- 
pus when suddenly, (I can go almost to the very 
spot, it was near the Cornell library toward old 
,Asbury Hall, on a little path that runs diagonally 
toward Meade Hall), the burden of sin was lifted 
and there came into my heart a wonderful peace. 
My sense of relief was so extreme that it was al- 
most physical. I stood up, I started to look be- 
hind me on the ground for the burden of sin that 
was gone; and then, realizing what it meant, I 
lifted my face and praised God with the cry, ^^0, 
there is no sin. ' ' That was the first instant in my 
life when God was consciously near me, the first 
instant when I felt His reality, so that I truly lov- 
■^d Him. 

The third experience was a few nights after- 
ward. I had gone to the prayer meeting of the lo- 
cal Methodist Church; at its close I came out and 
walking down to the stone posts at the Seminary 
gates, watched the other w^or shippers come out 
and go home. I felt the strangest new emotions. 
I watched them cross the road and climb up the 
bank on the other side. They were only dark 
forms whose faces I could not see, but I gazed at 
them and loved them; and felt I would be inex- 
pressibly happy if only I could embrace them all, 
jor in some other way express to them the emotions 
that filled my being. 

The fourth experience was when, for the first 
time, I realized how this new emotion had come to 
•overshadow all my natural feelings. It was on my 
second appointment, my first as a member of an 
Annual Conference. I was walking along the trol- 
ley tracks into the village; when I saw that I 
thought of mother less in the old familiar relation 
than as a fellow believer. The discovery filled me 
with fear, I did not at all comprehend it. That 
passage in St. Paul about those who had not nat- 



74 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

ural affection came to my mind, increasing my^ 
fear; but in spite of these things I felt strengthen- 
ed to trust and go on. 

A careful study of this experience wonderfully 
illustrates the whole Christian doctrine of sin and 
regeneration. By birth I was proud and self-cen- 
tered. By about six I had a definite moral life, and 
God had a certain reality, but only through the 
teachings of my parents. By nine I had felt the 
burden of sin sufficiently to understand a revival 
invitation. By fourteen I had a strong social 
sense, but while I wanted to do things among my 
friends, and for them, my motive was always self- 
centered. We can state the significance of the new 
social instinct thus: at six I enjoyed toys, at four- 
teen I enjoyed playmates and the dream of big re- 
Bponsibilities. The difference was simply in the 
instruments of my pleasure; at six it was toys, at 
fourteen it was other boys, and the sense of self- 
importance that comes with responsibility. At 
eighteen my conscience life was very strong, and 
I had my dreams of social reform, but even in this, 
self was always at the center. I wanted to live a. 
life, and belong to a social order that satisfied my 
conscience. Now the thing that is perfectly ap- 
parent is that I was never able to feel an organic 
motive, and that I never did feel an organic motive 
until born from above, in that experience out of 
which flowed a wonderful filial love toward God^ 
and a wonderful fraternal love toward men. 

Here, once again, we see the psychology of sal- 
vation. Man's natural motivity is self -centered 
and therefore inorganic and sinful. Such a mo- 
tivity can lead him to repentance and faith, but it 
cannot save him. The desire to flee from divine 
judgment is an inorganic motive, it is very far be- 
low righteousness, holiness, and sonship. But un- 
der the pressure of this motive the heart can yield 
up self -pride, in the act of repentance; and self 
will, in the act of faith. 

Now the motive to repentance is, as we have 
seen, inorganic. It is a pressure of moral truth and' 



THE* CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 75' 

self interest against pride, and is entirely an indi- 
vidualistic concern; but when the heart yields to 
repentance it does it at the sacrifice of pride, and 
with this sacrifice the citadel of the individualistic 
and inorganic has fallen. Faith unites the organ- 
ic and inorganic. The soul seeks itself, but it 
yields itself to gain itself. It comes to God in con- 
scious moral failure, it cannot organize its life un- 
der conscience, it says to God, take me as I am, and 
make me what you will have me, only save me. 
^^Only save me," is the intensely individualistic 
motive. ''Take me as I am, and make me what 
you will have me ' \ may not be an organic motive, 
but it is a yielding of one's heart to an organic 
work. 

God's answer is to reveal, deep within the con- 
sciousness of the believing heart, a forgiveness 
imediated through the blood of Jesus, and to cause 
,to be born there, the whole organic motive of son- 
ship toward God, and brotherhood toward man. 
Beyond this experience of regeneration, the Chris- 
tian's struggle is threefold, thus: 

1. It is to maintain uninterruptedly the bear- 
ing of faith; for faith is the breath of the spirit^ 
and to maintain faith at all is to progress in faith. 

2. It is to press into an ever deeper understand- 
ing of God's truth; so that constantly more and 
more fully we may be able to appreciate the mean- 
ing of the new life born within us. 

3. It is to gain expression for the new life in ac- 
tion; for while the slavery of the old is broken, and 
we can feel powerfully the strength of the new, we 
need to remember that the former motives still 
make a powerful appeal, and we are in much dan- 
ger from them. 

This fact of the persistent peril from our nature 
al motivity is among the best answers that can be 
given to those who claim that a soul can choose 
the whole Christian bearing at the first dawning 
of moral consciousness, and from there on live con- 
sistently the life of sonship. So far from this be- 
ing true, the fact is that the Christian or organic- 



76 THE CHILD AND THE CHUECH. 

motive only takes full possession of the heart very 
slowly and through striving; there is much that is 
proud, self-centered and individualistic, even in 
the lives of those who are far advanced in saint- 
hood. To claim, then, that a child can be trained 
■clear of the fall, is simply to miss all the deeper 
moral facts of life. In this connection we want 
once more to insist upon the moral worthlessness 
of every act that is not personal. An act that is 
simply the result of some habit or principle has no 
more moral worth in a man than it has in a mon- 
key or parrot. No act is morally worthy unless it 
is the expression of a morally organic motivity; so 
that no matter how useful conduct may be, social- 
ly, if it be found upon pride and self-assertion, it is 
morally worthless. The Christian motive or, as 
we have repeatedly called it, the organic motive, 
has been repeatedly defined. Repeating, then, it 
is a sense of duty and love pressing us to a con- 
stant yielding of our whole freedom in joyous 
obedience to the Saviour, to live out His blessed 
will for us in holy love. 

From this motive every vestige of the individ- 
ualistic and of the proud is absent, and it is not 
naturally possible; it is ^'The Kingdom' ' of 
which Jesus said, only those born from above can 
see it. It is worth while here again to remind our- 
selves that the program of ''Preventive Salva- 
tion" is not aiming at a Christian character such 
as we have described. Their aim is, as we have 
/before seen, a certain combination of the birth in- 
stincts, and those that develop during adolescence, 
with good habits and principles that have been in- 
culcated by training. Their hope is to build a 
character objectively efficient in humanity and 
beneficence. They have caught the idea of a cit- 
izen, rather than that of a citizen who is a saint; 
from the Christian point of view both their pro- 
gram and their aim is superficial. 



IX. 
A FINAL WOED. 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 79 



IX. 

Men are wondering to-day at tlie acliievements 
of natural science, and are asking what modifica- 
<^tions these great new discoveries must make in 
Christianity. And I think the answer is clear. 
No hnman discovery ever has or ever will change 
one item in those truths of the Gospel that must 
be believed unto salvation. If Jesus Christ is not 
of the ages, He is not the Son of God, and there is 
no Gospel. And if after sacrificing His only be- 
gotten Son upon the cross, and raising Him from 
the dead, God Almighty did not sufficiently illum- 
ine His chosen apostles to enable them to conceive 
and express without error the essentials of the 
Gospel, the whole of faith is thrown into confus- 
ion. 

Nothing could be more absurd than to believe in 
the Incarnation at Bethlehem, the crucifixion at 
Golgotha, the resurrection at the new-made sep- 
ulcher, the ascension at Olivet, and then to stop 
short of the Pentecost at Jerusalem. God Al- 
mighty, who can speak and it is done, never would 
have invested His Eternal Son in such a supernat- 
ural program of redemption as this one, and then 
have allowed the whole plan to be confused, and 
^ade ineffective, at the very beginning through 
His failure supernaturally to illumine and inspire 
His apostles. 

The reliability of the New Testament, as a rec- 
ord both of the facts and of the philosophy of re- 
demption, is as necessary to Christianity as the 
Theanthropic person of the Saviour; for without 
the providential record, the amazing Person would 
be both entirely out of reach, and wholly unreas- 
onable. 

Historic Christianity is not only wonderfully 
cohesive, it is an unbreakable unity; to deny any 
of its great items of faith is to destroy the whole. 
'The resurrection and ascension of God's Eternal 



80 THE CHILD AND THE CHUECH. 

Son from the dead presupposes His death. Hi^ 
death both presupposes the Incarnation, and to- 
gether with it, demands an explanation. The ex- 
planation given by the Scriptures is the universal 
reign of sin and death within the race, from which 
reign, through the redeeming work of Jesus, we- 
are to be delivered. But the universal reign of 
sin and death itself needs an explanation, it pre- 
supposes the fall of man through personal sin. 
Here is the beginning of the line, and starting here 
we can trace the whole movement of redemption. 

We can see it clearing as we trace the progress 
of the race's history. We read its literature, al- 
ways true, and yet always more nobly true. Cen-- 
tury after century passes, prophet after prophet 
apiDears upon the scene, delivers his message^ 
achieves his stage of progress and then passes on. 
At length we come to the climax, in the wondrous 
person of Christ, the Incarnate Word. He lives 
His amazing life, works His splendid miracles, 
He goes up to Jerusalem to die, He does die. He 
rises again triumphant from the dead. He ascends 
into Heaven, — but what does it all mean! For 
nineteen hundred years no one has known. This 
is the amazing position taken by some who claim 
to be the exponents of modern learning; from the 
beginning, they tell us, Christianity has been mis- 
conceived. True, the records say that Jesus 
chose, trained, and promised supernaturally to in-' 
spire His Apostles to be the ministers of His Gos- 
pel ; but in spite of this inspiration, they misunder- 
stood Him, and the Gospel they preached was from 
the beginning confused with their own traditions 
and prejudices. Nineteen hundred years had ta 
roll away in confusion and failure, and the induc- 
tive sciences had to be discovered before this 
wonderful Gospel of ^'God in the Eace" could be 
truly preached. And then when finally all this 
has happened and the Gospel is at last discovered, 
what is it found to be ? 

The answer is disappointing: for negatively the 
Gospel is found to be the denial of the most funda- 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 81 

mental fact in the whole Redemptive movement, 
the one fact which made it all necessary, namely, 
the fall of man, and the consequent depravity of 
everyone born in the race. In other words the 
Incarnate Word is stood at the climax of a series 
of misconceptions. He comes not to fulfill the 
law and the prophets but to correct their mis- 
takes. 

And positively, it is equally disappointing; for 
in actual emphasis it is found to be only Christ, 
the supreme man, the supreme hero, the supreme 
teacher, the supreme exemplar. Christ's great 
service to the race was His teaching of the two 
doctrines of the brotherhood of man, and the Fath- 
erhood of God. Certainly we are to understand 
that His teaching of them was not simply by word 
of mouth, He taught them also by the example of 
His beautiful life, and the heroic faithfulness of 
His awful death; but it is His ministry of teach- 
ing that is the significant thing; his office as the 
Redeemer from sin by the sacrifice of His cross 
is hardly regarded at all, and as a racial necessity 
it is really denied : for in the programme for mak- 
ing children Christians, the emphasis on sin and 
repentance is not only omitted, but children are 
to be guarded against gaining even a chance ac- 
quaintance with these ideas in the meetings for 
adults. In other words, instead of an almighty 
Saviour from sin, the perfect answer to the 
world's whole moral problem, we find that Christ 
is only a new edition of the Decalogue, improved 
and illustrated. This new Christianity, discover- 
ed in the twentieth century, is not really Chris- 
tianity at all. It is no more Christianity than the 
Unitarianism of the eighteenth century was. 
There is not, there cannot be any other Christian- 
ity than that which is historic, and if there is to 
be any Christianity in our century it must be the 
historic faith. 

We would by no means be guilty of belittling 
the splendid achievements for humanity of the 
natural sciences, they are innumerable, but they 



82 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

have their sphere. No scientific induction will 
ever change, or even increase our certainty of the 
trueness of the so-called axioms of thought. And 
so, too, with the whole realm of subjective cer- 
tainty, it is deeper than any truth inductively at- 
tained. God, duty. Eternal Life are subjective 
certainties, and those who feel and know them are 
consciously in touch with final truth, truth that is 
entirely independent of any inductive study of it. 
A dentist may know the physiology of a patient 's 
pain, but it is the pain itself that the patient 
knows, and this is a certainty deeper than its 
physiology. The power to love is entirely inde- 
pendent of a knowledge of its physiological basis; 
the artist's power to portray in color is entirely 
independent of a knowledge of the mechanics of 
light; and the souPs consciousness of relation to 
God, duty and Eternal Life is equally independent 
of any knowledge of the psychology and physi- 
ology upon which it is based. The Prophets and 
Apostles knew nothing of the mechanics of that 
machine we call the soul, but their souls worked, 
giving us a progressing revelation of spiritual 
verities that came to its crown in the New Cove- 
nant Scriptures. Our modern discoveries have 
not affected the trueness of Angelo, Raphael or 
DeVinci; they have as little affected the trueness 
of St. John and St. Paul. 

Many a man can run a motor car, who cannot 
construct one; but religion is concerned with the 
running of a soul, and not at all with its manufac- 
ture. Science can raise the question of fact; it 
can ask whether such men as the apostles ever 
lived; whether the texts of their reputed teachings 
are authentic; it can raise any question of fact 
concerning them, and must be heard with interest. 
But to assume that our modern knowledge of the 
mechanics of life and things has increased our 
power to live; to assume that our modern knowl- 
edge of objectives, makes us more capable in sub- 
jectives; to assume that a modern man, because 
of his scientific attainments, can love more deep- 



THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 83 

ly, and feel more keenly, in art, poetry, and f aitii 
is simply unwarranted arrogance. The twentieth 
century has gained through science no superior 
spiritual point of view by which to measure the 
divine wisdom that was in the first, and modern 
science can add nothing to the spiritual verities 
that came to us from there. Science can no more 
add to the faith of God Incarnate the Redeemer 
than it can to the beauty of the stars, both are 
complete, the perfect expression of the wisdom of 
God. And to get this faith into our age is the 
age^s supreme need and the Church's supreme 
task. Today men are calling upon the Church to 
put her ear to the ground and catch the wisdom 
of the age, but how much more she needs to put 
her ear to the sky and catch the wisdom of the 
ages. 

And measured by the wisdom of the ages this 
new teaching is certainly in error. It is contrary 
to the very genius of the great Protestant Reform- 
ation; for it is a system of salvation by character 
rather than by faith. It is contrary, too, to the 
fundamental history of Methodism, and of the 
v/hole great evangelical movement which Mr. 
Wesley started; for it ignores the one fact that 
underlies it all, John Wesley's own wonderful con- 
version. The Sunday-school that undertakes by 
training, environment and suggestion to put more 
spiritual and moral power into a life than Suzanna 
Wesley was able to put into the lives of her sons, 
John and Charles, has a task before it; yet her 
training left them far short of being experiencial 
Christians. The Sunday-School that hopes to win 
from adolescent youths a fuller self-dedication to 
love and serve God and men, than that which turn- 
ed John Wesley's life into a science of self-sacri- 
fice, has a task before it ; yet John Wesley himself 
witnesses to the slaver^^ of all his sacrifices, and 
to their Christian worthlessness. 

The careful student of Christian Psychology 
finds nothing confusing either in Wesley's 
or in Luther's experience. The tremendous moral 



84 THE CHILD AND THE CHURCH. 

I)robiem is not to get untruth and nncliastity out 
of human lives, but rather to get out of them their 
proud, self-centered wilfilness. We must lose our- 
selves to find ourselves. Jesus said, ^'except a 
man deny himself,'' that is disown himself, he 
could not be His disciple; and to get men to do 
this is the tragically difficult thing. Paul the 
Pharisee was neither untruthful nor unchaste, 
but he was proud and self-centered even in his 
effort at goodness, and Wesley and Luther were 
the same. Thus, Wesley, went all the way to 
Georgia to preach to the Indians, but not because 
he loved the Indians, and not because he loved the 
Saviour; he went because he wanted to do some- 
thing that would merit salvation. All through 
the years of his spiritual confusion, he was seek- 
ing to achieve salvation, to merit it; what he need- 
ed was to lose his pride and self-sufficiency in utter 
self abasement; he needed to ^'disown himself" 
as a guilty sinner and put all his hope in Jesus 
the Saviour of men. And when he did this Jesus 
met him and saved him, just as he always saves 
those who come to Him in repentance and faith. 
''I felt my heart strangely warmed within me 
* * * and an assurance was given me that He 
had taken away my sins, even mine, and had saved 
me from the law of sin and death." These are 
the words in which Mr. Wesley himself describes 
his conversion, and lo they are the typical words 
of all Christian experience. It took Mr. Wesley 
twelve years of passionate seeking to come into 
this experience, — why? There can be only one 
answer, it took him twelve years to unlearn the 
mistaken conceptions of salvation he had learned 
in his youth; twelve years to discover that salva- 
tion is not in principles of conduct, habits of ac- 
tion, and programs of service for men; but rather 
that it is a free gift of God's grace through faith. 
And now, finally, let us reiterate it is not the 
wisdom of the age, but of the ages in which we 
trust. The Church has often passed by that which 
has called itself new truth. Deism held itself to 
be ne^Y truth in the seventeenth century, but the 



THE CHILD AND THE CHUECH. 85 

Cliurcli passed it by. Unitarianism held itself to 
be new truth in the eighteenth century, it held it- 
self to be the very flower of culture, but the Church 
passed it by. But the Protestant Eeformation, 
the greatest movement of modern times, and the 
fount of our civilization, came not as new truth, 
but as the rediscovery of old truth, the rediscov- 
ery of Apostolic Christianity; this the Church em- 
braced, and unto what lasting joy. 

So it was, so it is, and so it must ever be; His- 
toric Christianity is the only Christianity, it is 
'^the faith once for all delivered unto the saints.'' 
It has not been given to our age to discover a new 
faith, or to improve an imperfect faith but to be 
the apostles and ministers of the perfect faith of 
Christ, and to repeat with all the Christian ages 
our glorious common creed: 

'^I believe in one God the Father Almighty, 
Maker of heaven and earth, and all things visible 
and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the 
only begotten Son of God; begotten of His Father 
before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very 
God of Very God; begotten and not made; being of 
one substance with the Father: By whom all things 
were made; who for us men and for our salvation 
came down from heaven, and was Incarnate by 
the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was 
made man ; And was crucified for us under Pontius 
Pilaie; He suffered and was buried; And the 
third day He rose again according to the Scrip- 
tures, And ascended into heaven. And sitteth on 
the right hand of the Father; And He shall come 
again with glory to judge both the quick and the 
dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end. And I 
believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, the Giver 
of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the 
Son; Who with the Father and the Son together 
is worshipped and glorified; Who spake by the 
Prophets: And I believe one Catholic and Apos- 
tolic Church: I acknowledge one Baptism for the 
remission of sins: And I look for the Resurrec- 
tion of the dead; And the Life of the world to 
come. Amen. ' ' 



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